The customs policy pursued by states in the interests of upholding national foreign economic interests is a complex of systemic measures of an economic, legal and organizational nature and consists in regulating customs relations. It acts as a component of the entire foreign economic policy and directly determines economic security.
The implementation of an effective customs policy is based on compliance with the principles that establish the most general directions and determine the provisions on which customs procedures are formed. For example, for a country such as Russia, organized as a federal state, the principles of unity are one of the most important principles for organizing customs policy. These principles of customs control suggest that:
- the creation of any customs borders is prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation;
- it is not allowed to create obstacles to the movement of goods, services and finances;
- it is forbidden to introduce any payments and customs duties by the local and regional authorities for the transferred resources;
- the introduction of temporary restrictions on their movement can be made only on the basis of federal law.
Labor Code of the Russian Federation in Art. 1 establishes that the customs procedures are aimed at organizing the movement of vehicles and goods in accordance with the adopted legislative acts. The set of customs regulations creates a system of customs law of the Russian Federation.
The main categories that the law in the field of customs law operates are customs procedures, customs, and customs operations.
Customs is a system of methods, as well as technical resources, with the help of which customs regulation is ensured in accordance with established legal norms and rules. Its structure includes customs statistics, tariffs, operations and customs procedures.
The latter are considered in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation as a system of norms and rules that determine the algorithm for performing customs operations, and operations, in turn, are separate actions carried out with customs items and persons performing activities falling within the competence of customs control authorities. These include such as payment of payments, filling out relevant documents, maintaining control, release of goods.
Customs formalities (this term is often used as identical with respect to procedures) include: internal transit, storage, name and rules for using customs regimes. The implementation of all formalities, as a rule, is carried out in the process of registration of goods transported across the state border. In fact, the customs procedure, customs transit and other formalities represent those powers that are exercised both by customs officers and foreign economic activity entities.
The customs tariff is a tool, or rather a means of trade policy, with the help of which both the regulation of the domestic market takes place and its interaction with the external ones takes place. Its foundation is the Commodity nomenclature of foreign trade activities used for customs and tariff support of this activity. The meaning of this nomenclature is that each item moved across the border has a special unique code that serves as the basis for applying the duty rate and determining its value.
An independent component of customs is statistics, which serves and is used mainly to control the systematic and correct receipt of payments to the federal budget. Its object is goods that potentially have the ability to influence the amount of material resources of the state.
These elements in their integrity, are practically implemented only on the basis of customs law. And through customs policy, both current and future tasks in the field of the country's foreign economic activity are achieved.